Being a longtime MMORPG player, I want to defend this game!  I started playing last week and so far, I love what I see.

I played EverQuest upon launch in 1999.  I can remember the game being full of bugs, exploits and just plain difficult to play.  EverQuest didn't start getting "good" until post Kunark, in my opinion.

The one thing that PoTBS has working against it from the start is the era in which it was created.  When EverQuest launched, there was only one or two decent MMORPG's on the market.  Now, there's hundreds.  People are expecting games to be perfect on launch without any bugs or issues.

Please give it time!  Let them at least come out with an expansion, and then form your opinion!

A good MMORPG isn't made overnight.  PoTBS has so much potential... and a game map that can be expanded upon many times over, with fixes and new additions.

Originally posted by LydellOFury

Being a longtime MMORPG player, I want to defend this game!  I started playing last week and so far, I love what I see.

I played EverQuest upon launch in 1999.  I can remember the game being full of bugs, exploits and just plain difficult to play.  EverQuest didn't start getting "good" until post Kunark, in my opinion.

The one thing that PoTBS has working against it from the start is the era in which it was created.  When EverQuest launched, there was only one or two decent MMORPG's on the market.  Now, there's hundreds.  People are expecting games to be perfect on launch without any bugs or issues.

Please give it time!  Let them at least come out with an expansion, and then form your opinion!

A good MMORPG isn't made overnight.  PoTBS has so much potential... and a game map that can be expanded upon many times over, with fixes and new additions.

PotBS is a good game.  As a former beta tester I have nothing but good things to say about FLS and the game that they developed.  Had they gone with a real publisher I would, most likely, still be playing.  Unfortunately they sided with the demonspawn John Smedley and I stick to my word, I will NEVER play a game that is under SOE.  It could be developed by Jesus Christ, produced by Mohammed and have the Dalai Lama as their Community Manager and I still wouldn't play it if it was part of SOE in any way shape or form.

Being a long time MMO player I wanted to like this game.  Unfortunately there just isn't much there to like.

Don't worry too much though, I don't think PotBS is in danger of shutting down - feel free to like it as much as you want.  It will always have some appeal to a certain population.

Most people who had an interest in this game have tried it, and voted with their feet. Come back in a couple more weeks, when you are going blind/insane from doing 100s of PvE missions, while trying to avoid the gank fest in the red circles, and tell us how good it is.

Tell us how good it is when you try to buy things or sell things in the broken economy and can't.

Tell us how good the end game is.

Tell us how good exploration, lore, and avatar combat are.

Yeah, we know how good it isn't, but do you?

You will.

Viral marketing FTL.

Originally posted by LydellOFury

Being a longtime MMORPG player, I want to defend this game!  I started playing last week and so far, I love what I see.

And that is great, but give it a month to two, and then post a follow-up.  If the follow-up is an 180 from you initial viewpoint don't worry.  It happens.

The one thing that PoTBS has working against it from the start is the era in which it was created.  When EverQuest launched, there was only one or two decent MMORPG's on the market.  Now, there's hundreds.  People are expecting games to be perfect on launch without any bugs or issues.

There are less than 200 MMO's which are Live.  But do need to subtract the ones which are no longer in service, browser use only and social worlds.  I believe that brings the number of live 3D MMOG's to 100 or less.  While it is true that EQ did enjoy a good market share since there were few other MMOG's out there, there are more to choose from now.  It makes perfect business sense for a customer to spend his/her money in a product or service that works to his/her expectation.  If the product/service is not satisfactory, then the customer can goes somewhere else.

That is the Free Market, not a Fair Market. which promotes competition.  Therefore it is up to the companies to do what they can to be profitable.

Please give it time!  Let them at least come out with an expansion, and then form your opinion!

Actually, a company should figure out of how best to succeed with the launch of a MMO.  Resorting to an ok attitude that bugs and problems will always happen and there is nothing that can be done about it, is not the smart way of doing things.  And should the game be buggy or have limited features, then cut down the price point until such a time when things are running great and the demand is there.

Work Smarter, Not Harder.

I've actually given it a chance 4 times with the same results, loved it the first 2-3 days each resub and then like a ligtht switch turning off cancel without thinking twice.  It's missing the mark by a long shot to justify being one of the $15 a month games.

OP, this game doesn't deserve a chance.  It's as dull and routine as any instanced piece of junk can be.  Heavy instancing, boring combat, and very little exploration of the world, no economy, no real purpose.

This game is a waste of money and time.

Originally posted by LydellOFury

Being a longtime MMORPG player, I want to defend this game!  I started playing last week and so far, I love what I see.

 

As others have said, review your experience when you hit about level 30. Then at 50.

In beta, I always thought the first 20-25 levels of the game were the most fun, by far. Small ships are still viable, and the various skillsets hadn't yet filled up with the wacky magic abilities that often made PvP silly.

For most people this seemed to be the case - as they reached level 25-35 or so, the repetition of the PvE grindfest begins to sink in and get very boring. At level 50 everyone is sailing around in the same gargantuan Frigate-sized gunboats - even pirates - and it's very very same-old-thing.

Originally posted by Jokerkaaos

Originally posted by LydellOFury

Being a longtime MMORPG player, I want to defend this game!  I started playing last week and so far, I love what I see.

 

 

As others have said, review your experience when you hit about level 30. Then at 50.

 

In beta, I always thought the first 20-25 levels of the game were the most fun, by far. Small ships are still viable, and the various skillsets hadn't yet filled up with the wacky magic abilities that often made PvP silly.

 

For most people this seemed to be the case - as they reached level 25-35 or so, the repetition of the PvE grindfest begins to sink in and get very boring. At level 50 everyone is sailing around in the same gargantuan Frigate-sized gunboats - even pirates - and it's very very same-old-thing.

I can attest that, in my case, this is exactly what happened.  In my case, I was levelling a Freetrader, and to give you a rough idea of chronology, I started playing on release day.

Levels 1-25 or so were fun, and I probably burned through those levels in two weeks or so.  I went around completing all missions I could find, avoiding PvP circles, then at level 20 I bought myself a Dromedary Indiaman, which I used both as a cargo and fighting ship.  I got my Trade Connections skill and got into production for myself, trying different production lines at first.  I made some money, but not much.

Levels 25-30: Still tolerable, but by then I was taking my time, so probably two further weeks, perhaps more.  Upon hitting 30, however, I said to myself, okay, I could use advanced structures if I wanted to.  Why should I level up any higher?  By this stage I had started playing the economy and optimizing my production line (I specialized in wood tar and hemp rope), trading all over the ocean, but I was getting miffed by all the calls to pass on port battle invitations due to the vast number of people who had already reached level 50.

Levels 30-40: I still went around doing missions, selecting only those which appealed to me.  What I wanted to do at all costs was to avoid having to grind on the open sea.  Since I was a freetrader and with excess money, I went around completing trading missions, or at least those that weren't in the red.  I probably gained two or three levels this way. Upon hitting level 38, where I could buy myself a Defiant frigate, I figured I had no reasons to go further.  I was heavily into the economy at this stage, which had not collapsed yet.  It probably took me anywhere from one to two months for this phase, and in that time period, I was getting more fun putting together a newspaper for the French faction, available to all forum readers, than from playing the game.

Levels 40-45:  "What is the ******* point of this?"  At this stage, I was doing like everyone else -- grinding Woes of Santo Domingo until I wanted to bang my head on the desk (usually three consecutive runs were enough).  My only reason for taking part was because the entire society was getting involved in this.  The economy was getting tiresome, so I dumped my entire stock on the Auction House of my home port of Grenville.  This was exacerbated by my society's decision to transfer to Rackham, a server whose community I didn't care at all about (Garbad, Halod, and the rest).  By late May, I had dropped playing the economy altogether because the market was showing signs of imminent collapse.

I never made it to level 50.  The game was clearly going down by the time I reached 45, I didn't like several of the French faction regulars in port battles, and now there were increasing calls to pass not only if you weren't level 50, but also if you were 50 and didn't have a ludicrously expensive lineship or equivalent (which only the Naval Officer class could use anyway).  Under such circumstances, what was the point of getting to 50 anyway?

What further discouraged me was my recalling the XP scale, which described how at level 43 you weren't even two-thirds of the way to maximum experience points and level 50 (you reached the first third at level 33...).

My subscription expired in late June, but if I do subscribe again, it will be for the sole purpose of seeing how far the game has deteriorated.  Based on the official forums, it is all but a wasteland these days.  On the other hand, many of the hardcore have now departed for Warhammer, so maybe the community will have improved somewhat. 

But for that, you need a community in the first place, and even the regulars are giving up the fight.  Jack SImple has quit once again, Halod Crane has quit, Garbad the Weak is quitting. The major French societies on Rackham have quit or transferred to Antigua.  Is it worth going back just to check on inflation, the closed-society economics, insurance, or the 1.7 mechanics?  I really don't think so...

I agree with Severius. 

Good job sticking to your convictions by the way.

T

If you're still playing in a month come back and try to sell people...

I guess I'll finally say something about the game. I started in the closed beta towards the end of it, and I really liked the game. I am a sailor IRL, and like naval history and ships, so that held my interest. When it went Live, I subscribed immediately. Meanwhile, I got into an early Society. That Society fell apart, and we refomred another one.

Our Society was active and fun, but then personal politics crept in. People would quit, factions were formed, and then we moved to Rackham. I levelled my Freetrader to 50 and had fun doing it.

But then I began wondering what else there was to do?  Our Society continued to have drama, and more people left. I'm not real big on PvP, and that seemed too gank-prone and repetitive for me. I finally quit, because the game is missing a large part of what I play for:

- the fun of exploration -- that does not exist, at all, in this game

- the various zones with different scenery -- this does not exist either, at all

- the living, changing environment -- no environment at all in this game. Everything is flat water, not even wind or waves, or weather. To a sailor, it looks unreal and dead.

- various enemies to fight, different dynamics to fighting -- this does not exist at all either. You are always fighting the same thing, ships. This leads to mind-numbing repetition.

- dynamic player-driven economy -- it is possible to have this, but most Societies, including the one I was in, did everything privately.

- individual harvesting and crafting -- these don't exist either. Everyone makes the same factories that make all the same stuff. There is no way to learn to be the best cannon maker, or the best cotton harvester. Everything is identical.

So what does that leave? Ship combat. PoTBS is a great ship battle simulator, and it is very little else. If you are very interested in ship combat simulation, the game has a great appeal.

What would I change? I already posted on the forums, but here is a short list:

- add exploration -- the map is